Media clips

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• Hiring crunch is boosting pay for restaurant workers

  So while restaurant workers have more options today, “that doesn’t mean there are a bunch of family-sustaining jobs,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute. “The weekly wages that are in that industry — they are extraordinarily low.”

  In June, average weekly earnings for all employees in the leisure and hospitality sector amounted to $483, or just over $23,000 per year, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  “Wages have grown in leisure and hospitality this year for sure, but they plummeted in the earlier part of the recession. So it’s not like the wages are high by any stretch in this industry,” Shierholz said. “These workers definitely have more leverage than they did in December in the worst of this, but it is far from an industry where workers call all the shots. It’s still extremely low wages, unstable hours, weak benefits.

  Eventually, the industry is likely to arrive at a post-pandemic equilibrium, and workers will lose some of their newfound bargaining power.

  “I looked hard and I can’t see anything in this that I expect to be permanent,” Shierholz added. “We’re in a labor market that’s in very rapid flux, so there are some pockets like this where we’re seeing unusual dynamics. But I think this is a temporary shift in some of the bargaining power to workers.”

  CBS News July 9, 2021
• 11 Charts on Taxing the Wealthy and Corporations

  As corporate tax obligations have declined, CEO pay has skyrocketed. According to Office of Management and Budget data and Economic Policy Institute research, when corporate tax receipts made up 21.8 percent of all federal revenue in 1965, the average CEO-to-median worker pay ratio was 21 to 1. After the 2017 Republican tax cuts, corporations plowed significant windfalls into stock buybacks and executive bonuses. By 2019, corporate tax receipts had fallen to just 6.6 percent of federal revenue and the average pay ratio had risen to 320 to 1.

  Inequality.org July 9, 2021
• ‘Trying to strangle local governments’: What happens when states and their cities become adversaries?

  The fault lines of inequality exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have also thrown the pre-emption issue into starker relief. A 2020 report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute notes that legislative moves are “disproportionately harming the same communities that have been pre-empted from taking local action, limiting their ability to effectively combat the public health crisis.”

  The report, which focuses on the South, characterizes pre-emption as “embedded in a racist history.” Pre-emptive laws “are passed by majority-white legislatures and tend to create barriers to economic security in cities whose residents are majority people of color.”

  MarketWatch July 9, 2021
• Biden’s latest executive order empowers workers in 3 key ways

  Noncompete agreements prevent workers from going to a competitor or starting a competing business within a certain period after leaving their previous job. Between 36 million and 60 million private-sector workers were subject to noncompete agreements in 2019, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute.

  “The only economic leverage that non-unionized workers have is the implicit threat that they could quit and go somewhere else,” Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, told Yahoo Money. “Noncompete agreements reduce wages. Your employer doesn’t have to pay you bigger wages if they know that you don’t have outside options.”

  Limiting noncompete agreements or making them unenforceable — as Biden’s order sets out to do — may not be enough, according to Shierholz. Banning them instead would give workers more leverage, she said.

  Yahoo Finance July 9, 2021
• Number of workers unemployed for more than a year jumps by 248,000

  “There are many people who lost their jobs early on in the recession who’ve been unemployed ever since,” according to Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist at the Department of Labor during the Obama administration.

  The increase in yearlong unemployment comes as the U.S. added 850,000 jobs in June, the most since August 2020.

  But the jump makes sense given the contours of the Covid labor market, Shierholz said.

  Layoffs, which began en masse in March and April 2020, were still about 20% higher than pre-pandemic levels over the following two months, she said.

  (Layoffs are a different metric than net jobs gained or lost, and are reported separately from the monthly jobs figures.)

  A jump in 52-week unemployment therefore reflects the elevated layoffs a year ago. The numbers will likely soon decline, since layoffs had normalized by July, she said.

  “As the overall unemployment rate comes down, I expect the long-term unemployment rate will come down,” according to Shierholz.

  Those out of work for an extended duration are likely among the hardest-hit industries, like leisure and hospitality, Shierholz said.

  CNBC July 9, 2021
• Statistics tell split stories about recovery

  Economist Elise Gould, who works with the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, noted that the leisure and hospitality workforce is still below the pre-COVID-19 numbers. There are also big needs in government and education employment.

  …

  Gould’s fellow economist at EPI, Heidi Shierholz noted in a series of tweets that wage increases accompany hospitality growth.

  “One exception is in leisure and hospitality, where wages of nonsupervisory workers have risen sharply enough to suggest an actual (if sector-specific) shortage,” Shierholz tweeted. “But when you look further, you find little to be concerned about.”

  Herald Banner July 9, 2021
• Exclusive: Union flexes muscle for internet funding

  CWA does not represent tower climbers, Shelton said, and an Economic Policy Institute report from October found that the share of telecom workers represented by a union has fallen from 60% in the 1970s to about 16%.

  Axios July 9, 2021
• U.S. job openings high for second consecutive month

  But that number, combined with 5.9 million hirings, is still encouraging, according to Elise Gould with the Economic Policy Institute. “So you are seeing both job openings and hiring eating away at the big hole that we have that was left in the labor market when the pandemic hit,” Gould said.

  Marketplace July 9, 2021
• Biden seeks to strengthen options for workers with new order

  A 2019 analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimated that 36 million to 60 million workers could be subject to noncompete agreements.

  The Associated Press July 9, 2021
• Nikole Hannah-Jones refused to be blinded by white prestige

  Hannah-Jones’ experience reaffirms an insidious truth: Black greatness is seen only as equal to white mediocrity. In 2015, the Economic Policy Institute reported the unemployment rate for college-educated Black people was the same as for white people who had not finished college. And this issue has plagued UNC for years.

  Mic July 9, 2021
• Not a ‘smoking gun’: No proof expanded unemployment benefits are killing the economic recovery

  “It seems like something that was completely misguided and not supported by the facts or the evidence at all,” said Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. “There were a lot of inaccurate comparisons and conclusions drawn.”

  “I think the idea of wanting to cut benefits early is more a political point than one that is justified by the economic data,” Wilson added. “With the latest report, we’re on track for the recovery to remain strong and vibrant, and I just don’t think it’s a very wise decision to do anything to hinder that at this point. Those benefits are important for families and contributing to the demand that is needed for job growth to continue. By cutting those prematurely, you risk cutting the recovery short or at least hindering it.”

  Yahoo News July 9, 2021
• Biden seeks to strengthen options for workers with new order

  The forthcoming order will direct the Federal Trade Commission to restrict and potentially bar so-called noncompete agreements, which have stopped workers in industries including fast food and Big Tech from going to other employers for higher pay. A 2019 analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimated that 36 million to 60 million workers could be subject to noncompete agreements.

  ABC News July 9, 2021
• Bloomberg Markets: What’d You Miss? (07/02/2021)

  Caroline Hyde & Joe Weisenthal bring the news and analysis you may have missed after the closing bell on Wall Street. Today’s show tackles the jobs report and the Boston Pops 4th of July Spectacular Guests Today: Valerie Wilson of the Economic Policy Institute, Daniel Yanisse of Checkr, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops (Source: Bloomberg)

  Bloomberg TV July 9, 2021
• 10 things you need to know today: July 3, 2021

  The U.S. added 850,000 jobs in June, “far surpassing expectations” and putting the country on pace to reach pre-pandemic levels of health by “the end of 2022,” per The Wall Street Journal and the Economic Policy Institute. Average growth over the last three months came in at 567,000, and unemployment changed little, up to 5.9 percent from 5.8 percent.

  The Week July 9, 2021
• Leisure and hospitality businesses are hiring a ton — and they’re paying people more

  But, as Heidi Shierholz, a former Obama administration economist and now director of Policy at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed out on Twitter, wages for workers in leisure and hospitality “plummeted” last year during the recession, so even with the strong wage growth in those sectors this year, wages are not that much higher than if the pandemic had never happened.

  “Over the last three months, leisure & hospitality has added 977,000 jobs—well over half of the 1.7 million total jobs added over that period,” Shierholz wrote. She added that these numbers “are just not signaling a big labor shortage.”

  Business Insider July 9, 2021
• This chart shows which industries had the biggest job gains in June

  Government followed behind leisure and hospitality with 188,000 jobs added last month. Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote on Twitter specifically about state and local government job gains, which added 193,000 jobs together.

  …

  Shierholz wrote it is “crucial” that these governments “use their ARP funds to refill those jobs” because there are still around 1 million fewer state and local government jobs in June than before the pandemic.

  Business Insider July 9, 2021
• Minimum wage continues to rise in states as federal action stalls

  “It’s been a dozen years since Congress raised the national minimum wage, so the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. economy have seen an 18% pay cut as the cost of living went up over that time period,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told Yahoo Finance. “Congressional inaction is why places like Delaware, Florida, and more than two dozen other states have increased their minimum wage in the last several years.”

  Yahoo Finance July 9, 2021
• Who’s really making more on unemployment?

  “Unemployment insurance is not going to solve care problems. It’s not going to solve health concerns,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist and director of policy for the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. “Cutting [unemployment insurance] is not going to have a huge effect on the labor shortages.”

  Pittsburgh Post Gazette July 9, 2021
• Five takeaways from the June jobs report

  “Many people who lost jobs at the start of the pandemic have been unemployed ever since. As jobs come back they will get work but there is still a big jobs deficit,” said Heidi Shierholz, policy director at the left-learning Economic Policy Institute, in a Twitter thread.

  The Hill July 9, 2021
• ‘The Great Resignation’: June’s US jobs report hides unusual trend

  Dr Valerie Wilson, the director of Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy (Pree), warned against treating any one month’s report with too much importance, “The caveat is that subsequent revisions or updates to the numbers could always change what that story is. We always know more in retrospect than we do in any at any single point.”

  …

  These differences, of course, have been entrenched throughout US history. In particular, Wilson is concerned with “occupational segregation”, which has historically meant that Black and brown workers are disproportionately represented in some industries and not others.

  “For example, we know that women – women of color in particular – are more likely to be in low-wage service and those industries are hit extremely hard during a recession,” she said.

  Industries, such as leisure and hospitality, continue to falter in regaining their pre-pandemic rates of unemployment.

  The Guardian July 9, 2021
• The Wealth Inequality Virus Persists

  Reported in an April 21 New York Times article  with the headline:  C.E.O. Pay Remains Stratospheric, Even at Companies Battered by Pandemic

  “Chief executives of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1989, that ratio was 61 to 1. From 1978 to 2019, compensation grew 14 percent for typical workers. It rose 1,167 percent for C.E.O.s.”

  Counterpunch July 9, 2021
• Biden Has A Chance To Boost Unions With New Labor Board Appointments

  Celine McNicholas, labor counsel at the Economic Policy Institute, said the NLRB can change the landscape for workers’ bargaining power only so much within the current system.

  But even in its limited capacities, McNicholas said the direction of the labor board affects workers all across the country. She pointed to the Trump board’s memo on excluding Uber’s tens of thousands of drivers from collective bargaining law.

  “There are certain things the agency can do that make a great deal of difference,” she said. “They can certainly look for ways, when those cases present themselves, to either uplift workers’ rights or really decimate them.”

  Huffpost July 9, 2021
• Employers are turning to signing bonuses to try and lure in new workers

  While one-time bonuses might be one way to temporarily address the problem, Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, previously told Insider there could be a more simple, compensation-based solution: Raising wages altogether.

  Business Insider July 9, 2021
• Hiring bonuses no substitute for higher wages

  Ben Zipperer: The Economic Policy Institute says hiring bonuses in no way substitute for higher wages.

  Scripps National News July 9, 2021
• Jobs Up, Pay Up: Breaking Down the June Jobs Report
  Cheddar July 9, 2021
• There’s a Way to Get More People Vaccinated—and It Doesn’t Involve the Lottery

  Terri Gerstein is the director of the State and Local Enforcement Project at the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and a senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute. Previously, she was the Labor Bureau chief in the New York State Attorney General’s Office and a deputy commissioner in the New York State Department of Labor.

  The Nation July 9, 2021
• Jobs report

  Payroll growth over the last three months in the US has been ‘huge’, says Heidi Shierholz, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute (and former chief economist at the Department of Labor)

  The Guardian July 9, 2021
• Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Paved the Way for Donald Trump’s America

  While Joe Biden narrowly won back Wisconsin and Michigan last year, the states are increasingly polarized, a trend that has been exacerbated by labor’s demise. As the Economic Policy Institute has shown, the decline in union membership correlates with a rise in income inequality. It is also a central culprit in America’s political dysfunction and in the atomization of the electorate; studies have shown that union members are more active in civil society, more likely to vote and less prone to racial resentment.

  New York Times July 9, 2021
• The Supreme Court Just Dealt a Blow to Farmworkers — And All Other Workers, Too

  The rule that gives California unions access to private property was put in place for good reason. “It takes account of who farmworkers are, how they work, and the fact that they are really hard to reach,” says Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.

  Costa says that many farmworkers live on the premises where they work, meaning that in order to speak to them at all, union organizers need to be able to access private agricultural property. In other cases, such as at Cedar Point, workers live in housing that is rented out and therefore effectively controlled by their employer.

  On top of being physically hard to reach, Costa says there are often language barriers, with many workers speaking a primary Indigenous language rather than Spanish or English. “They also sometimes work unusual hours because of the heat, and usually live and work in far-off rural places,” says Costa.

  Jacobin July 9, 2021
• Employers are turning to signing bonuses to try and lure in new workers

  While one-time bonuses might be one way to temporarily address the problem, Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, previously told Insider there could be a more simple, compensation-based solution: Raising wages altogether.

  Business Insider July 9, 2021